Mortal Coils is a Call of Cthulhu RPG supplement containing various scenarios/mysteries that are to be solved by the players. On the whole, the book is attractive and well-organized. Each scenario has a detailed table of contents, effective artwork and its own distinctive margin art, which adds nothing to the adventure, but seems to have become fashionable in gaming books. There are some nice player aids in the back, and also a set of calendars for any year (similar to that in the greatest of all scenario collections, The Great Old Ones) The scenarios themselves are all very individual, which is good. For a while, most CoC adventures were pretty interchangeable: just change the Great Old Ones name and the color of robes that the cultists wore and you’ve got a new scenario. That variability is the strength of Mortal Coils, and also its weakness ... a particular scenario may not grab you.
I’ve tried not to spoil the adventures, but I give no guarantees
Vigilante Justice by John H. Crowe III
Like all of Crowe’s work, there is an overwhelming mass of background detail. Keepers who like that will be happy; personally, I tend to find it a little limiting. Rather than make something up, I feel compelled to find the right’ answer, but then have to hunt through the wealth of background to find it. As for the adventure itself, I found it ... ho-hum. There’s some good investigation work to be done, but the plot is unremarkable. The adventure calls for one of the investigators to be married to an NPC (Non-Player Character)-- whom the NPC stats say is 87 years old (oops!) -- pretty hoky, but at least Crowe offers an alternative set-up, though still requiring the investigators to be rural Kentuckians. The thing that engaged my mind the most about this adventure was trying to figure out why a creek in turn of the century Kentucky is named after a Japanese quantum physicist. The runner-up question is why an element from the map of a different adventure in the book shows up in this adventure. If I seem unduly harsh, let me say that I consider several of the recently published CoC scenarios to be bad. Vigilante Justice is merely lackluster.
A Murder of Crows by John H. Crowe III
A much more successful effort. Again, theres a lot of detail, but now the information seems better integrated into the probable flow of the investigation. Again, there’s a large cast of characters, but a group of collected descriptions makes it easier to handle conversations/interrogation with players. There are some great creepy details, including one man’s unusual pasttime, which would not likely have made it past Chaosium’s editorial staff. Rather than sneak it through, Pagan Publishing has opted to depict it with an effective Heather Hudson illustration. Some of the details seem a little unnecessary, like the link to the Civil War. Another problem is that the evil is so well entrenched that even Crowe admits that the best course for the investigators is to call in the Feds. Although this is something that most CoC investigators want to do at some point or another, such a deus ex machina takes the satisfaction out of winning’. If the investigators are loaded for elephant and tactically minded, then they can probably manage it on their own.
Nightcap by Jeff Moeller
This is a clever adventure with many good details. It would be a good one to run when your players need something a little different. One drawback is that the adventure will probably end with the antagonist still alive and kicking. The adventure doesn’t offer a clever way to defeat the foe. Also, the climax involves a mixing of reality with dream that may be more distracting than enjoyably frightening. When I run it, I’ll tone down that aspect. There’s a lot of investigation work to be done, and some of it is just too hard. One person vital to the investigation is too difficult to find. The investigators run into brick wall after brick wall, and most players I know would become discouraged and imagine I guess the adventure isn’t supposed to go that way’. Nonetheless, the adventure is just so novel that it’s well worth the tiny effort required to fix its flaws (as I see them). This is probably my favorite, based on my cursory read-through of them all.
God of the Mountain by Michael Cisco
This is another good adventure for players who need a change of pace. However, you have to have the right kind of players for this to work. The adventure relies almost entirely on mood and atmosphere. If your players are a bloodthirsty pack of guntoting Conans, then this won’t be for you. I wonder if I, as Keeper, could keep the atmosphere together long enough to make it effective, without it becoming irritating. I can imagine many players feeling cheated by the lack of usual elements of the game.
Common Courtesy by Jeff Moeller
Have to love an adventure based on a passage in Herodotus. Again, this adventure is not your standard CoC fare. There are few Mythos references. Like Moeller’s ³Nightcap² there are some really clever details, especially what I consider to be the best’ solution to the climactic scene. But I doubt it will occur to most players without some heavy prompting. If I can insert a parenthetical comment: this is one of the most difficult things in writing an adventure. Making the clues hard enough without being too hard. It depends also on how smart your players are. If you throw a die at a random person in my gaming group, the odds are about 50-50 that it will strike a person with a Master’s degree or better. Nevertheless, when you get enough Cheetos in them, their minds decay to the point where subtle clues will never penetrate their skulls. At the other extreme, I seem to recall a Chaosium haunted house’ adventure where the creature could be killed by salt, and a former inhabitant of the house left numerous clues pointing to the fact, including the subtle message ³NaCl² written somewhere or other. Anyway, the Keeper’s job is to alter the adventure one way or other to make it playable for his players. This adventure also has a lot of campaign potential for making your investigators a cohesive group bonded by common experience. Ritual scarification tends to do that. If you’re going to run this one, I strongly suggest making the Afghani barbarians as sympathetic as possible. If the players and the Afghanis become complete and utter enemies, the best’ solution is never going to happen. Help the investigators get into a PC, multicultural, diversity state of mind.
Mysteria Matris Oblitae by Dennis Detweiler
The adventure calls for the investigators to play scientists associated with the University of Mexico City. If your characters aren’t, then you’ll have to do a little futzing with the scenario to get it to work. Also, the characters are supposed to be Cthulhu Mythos novices, but the final solution will call either for the kind of firepower found only among paranoid veterans, or for calling in the Federales. Apart from these flaws in the overall structure, the adventure as a whole looks pretty good, with a lot of enjoyable scenes and details. It ends with a few notes on the playtesting sessions; for the most part these are the usual you had to have been there stories, but the last one offers a great insight into how to utilize the alien threat.
RPG definition for the uninitiated
When I review RPGs I assume that most readers know what an RPG is. In any case, I have included in my reviews a short definition of RPGs for the uninitiated.
Generally a typical Role Play Game would be an activity satisfying most of the following:
1. It involves persons consciously playing fiction roles (either medieval, contemporary or sci-fi roles)
2. It involves the collective creation of a story
3. Usually one of the participants is responsible for guiding the activity
4. There is no audience besides the participants themselves (unless there is a demonstration of course).
5. The main purpose of the activity is to entertain the participants.
There are published books, often referred to as Rulebooks, containing unique rules regarding how to create a character (role) or how to resolve specific actions. Generally the success of an action is determined with by rolling one or more dice (dice can be funny in RPGs since they tend to have more than 6 surfaces).
Besides the rulebooks, there are books describing settings in which characters can role play. Settings are very diverse and include high or low fantasy worlds, dystopian worlds, contemporary worlds, or alternate reality worlds.
More RPG reviews that I would love to get a few more ratings:
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Referee’s Screen by Games Workshop
Feng Shui Action Roleplay by Atlas Game
Unknown Armies by Atlas Games
Delta Green by Pagan Publishing
Mechwarrior RPG by FASA
Shadowrun 3rd Edition by FanPro
All Flesh Must be Eaten by Eden Studios
GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade by Steve Jackson Games
Time of Thin Blood by White Wolf
Jerusalem By Night by White Wolf
Dark Conspiracy by GWC
7th Sea RPG by AEG
Recommended:
